Madonna
by bofoddity
Summary: After she got out of the hospital, Cynthia began to wear white more often. Silent Hill 4 AU, Henry x Cynthia.


**Author's Notes:** This was originally written for LJ-community Het Challenge, for the following prompt: "Silent Hill 4: Henry/Cynthia. Something slightly AU where he actually hooks up with Cynthia would be great. If that doesn't work for you, Henry/Eileen is great too. Dark themes are great of course but please no non-con with these particular characters." I decided to go with Henry/Cynthia, so in this story Cynthia was the leading lady instead of Eileen.

**Disclaimer: **Silent Hill belongs to Konami. No copyrights infringement intended.

**Language Disclaimer:** I'm not a native speaker of English, so my phrasing may be a little odd.

**Madonna**

I

After she got out of the hospital, Cynthia began to wear white more often.

It was a boring color, so she wore it as creatively as she could: short white dresses with black leather boots (this was how she discovered that Henry liked legs, feeling his eyes trail down her calves), white bodices and corsets; sometimes with shirts on top, sometimes without.

She couldn't tell whether it was cute or annoying that Henry's eyes never wandered down from her shoulders, but the times he slipped, she adored his blush. A lace choker became a new favorite among her accessories, touch of both dirty and pure. (And when Henry found her lying on bed wearing nothing else, he went mute at the sight).

It was a superficial change, and nobody really cared about it. Nobody but Cynthia herself, watching her wardrobe lose its colors, like they were dirt to get rid of. Like she was being cleaned.

II

She was no longer comfortable around her friends.

They had all come to see her in the hospital the day she woke, the sheer number of them making her panic a little, but she had been glad to see them. She had missed them terribly when she had been - In coma? Nightmare? Purgatory? – away, and they were happy to have her back. They had joked about Cynthia's appearance and teased poor Henry, and she had honestly thought that everything would be all right again.

Cynthia had always been good at fooling herself, so she believed that for a long time.

She believed, and ignored the way every word that came out of their mouths was either shallow or stupid in her ears, how she had to force herself to laugh with them. She ignored the way they had hard time looking at her, flinching at the carvings on her chest ("How come my breasts are so interesting nowadays?" she asked once, cringing at the hollow cheer in her voice.) and the way Cynthia kept fingering them, searching for scabs to scratch off. She just couldn't convince herself that she was all right now.

"Maybe some other time," she said whenever they asked her to come partying with them, visit a new night club, just get outside for once. The silence in the other end of the line became deeper with every call, and when they finally stopped asking, she pretended she minded.

III

In fact, she wasn't comfortable anywhere except in her own apartment.

"You should go out one day."

Cynthia was standing by the window, watching as a young woman hopped her way down the street, trying to remember how it had been like to be that carefree. Henry usually had hard time putting emotion in his voice, so when she could easily hear his concern, she softened.

"I'm fine here." Cynthia turned to smile at him, not stopping as he frowned at her.

"Exactly. You're fine here." Henry was standing by the doorway, his hand shifting restlessly on the door handle, pushing it up and down. That was his new habit, his unpleasant trait. It was unfair that he complained about hers when Cynthia never said a thing about his.

"It's over now. There's nothing dangerous out there," Henry continued, pushing the handle down as he opened the door a little, hesitating when Cynthia flinched. The corridor behind the door looked perfectly normal, no rust or mysterious scribbles on the walls.

Cynthia shuddered again, backing up against the window. The sun had warmed the glass, reminding her that there was light, life, outside. She leaned against the warmth, imagining herself walk out of the door, out of the hall, out of the apartment building. She imagined herself walking down the streets with dance in her steps, like she had never seen nightmares. Down the streets, down to the subway.

(Or did that mean she was going inside again?)

She imagined a sweet young woman walking her way, smiling wide. She imagined cuts and bruises on the woman's face, a cast on her arm, bloody patch over her eye. Reaching out for Cynthia with pale arms and breathing "mommy".

Cynthia drew away from the window, but didn't move elsewhere. The glass was too hot, too much for her.

As the world outside was.

"Maybe some other day."

For a moment, Henry seemed furious with her, but his temper settled quickly, and as always, he left without a word. Cynthia knew he would be gone for hours. Being outside was his way to convince that he was safe. Cynthia would allow him that. She was fair.

IV

It embarrassed Cynthia how much it mattered to her, but she couldn't help it; she wasn't beautiful anymore.

If Cynthia looked into the mirror, it would try to convince her otherwise. It would ignore the way her eyes kept drawing to the numbers (stigmas) on her chest, reminding her about other things instead; that there was no longer a constant coat of blood on her skin, nor was her hair limp and dark, getting into her face all the time. She had no bruises nor swelling, no broken bones, no agony that kept her tossing and whimpering and unable to sleep; no frantic whispers of poor Walter (_didn't he have a horrible life, weren't you so mean to him back then, don't you want to make up for that_) in her head.

And Henry didn't think so either when he walked behind her, whispering about her beauty as he pulled her away from the mirror, kissing her gently around her eyes, on her mouth, on her scars. His hands didn't shudder in disgust when he pushed them under her clothing, running them over her breasts and hips, stroking her loathing away. The sickness she felt inside never mattered when he tasted her, his tongue as hot as the flame that kept the ghosts and the darkness away, nothing that was inside her ever mattered then.

It didn't matter that the numbers, the stigmas, the truth, went deeper than her skin and flesh. Her dresses had sleeves and passed her knees now, but beneath the layer of white, there was still dirt left.

That dirt had always been there, beneath her beautiful face, on her tongue when she had called others filth. But she knew about it now, and she was determined to get rid of it.

V

When Cynthia had returned to reality, she had been pregnant.

No amount of denial had helped her then as she had screamed and cursed in Henry's arms, sickened by the weight inside her. She had hated it so much, clutching her belly in despair and loathing, thinking of the ways to get rid of it. Clinics, falls in stairs, knives pressed against her skin.

Nine months had passed and the weight was still there, but the thoughts were gone.

Cynthia grimaced as she sat up on the bed, the weight inside her shifting as she swung her legs over the edge of the bed. She hadn't moved much lately, her knees quivering at her weight as she stood up, but it was nothing she couldn't handle. She trudged towards the bedroom door, brushing her hand over the large arch of her stomach as she took one last look around her.

It was strange to think that she would never come back here again. A wistful little emotion passed through her mind before she turned away, and left the room. Her past wasn't worth missing.

Henry was waiting for her by the front door, carrying a single bag that was enough to hold everything he deemed important in his life, not much bigger than Cynthia's purse. He looked like he was going to miss this place more than Cynthia would, something like longing on his face, but he hid it the moment he caught Cynthia looking at him, smiling to her. The smile didn't reach his green eyes, which were hesitant, unsure.

Cynthia smiled back and walked over to him, drawing his hand in hers. It seemed like he was the one more afraid now, wary of what waited for them beyond that door. But just like Henry had been there for her, Cynthia was going to be there for him. It would be all right.

"Let's go," she said, releasing his hand as she reached out to open the door.

The hall was smaller than she remembered, the walls almost near enough for her to just reach out and feel them with her palms. Everything she saw was plain and brown, just like the world before her life had changed had been. Ordinary.

Everything except for Henry's door, which hadn't been opened in months.

Cynthia touched her belly again as she stepped towards that door, curling her fingers around the handle. The weight inside her twisted, but she ignored it, smiling to Henry when he took her hand again. His hold was firm and comforting, promising her that he would never leave her. He would make such a fine father.

"Shall we go inside?" Her smile widened at his nod, and she pushed the handle down.

It was time to become clean.

The door opened.


End file.
